Staying real

One of the great stalwart founders of true anti-State satire John Bird () passed on two days ago. I never met him, but I do get a flyshit mention in the footnotes of Adland history (for having helped persuade the Gallaher client to make a commercial and then brief two legendary members of the CDP Creative Department, Dave Horry and Paul Weiland*) to write a script that would give the Silk Cut low-tar cigarette brand a less “cold medical” image and trade higher-tar cigarette users into “safer” low tar smoking**. John Bird starred in the cinema commercial “Zulu” that resulted…. a wonderful pisstake of the movie starring Michael Caine.

* Dave was the art director and Paul the writer, but no such separation between skills was ever a phenomenon I noticed….borne out by the fact that Paul later became a commercials director, while Dave founded an agency in China…